When Congress leader Rahul Gandhi termed the caste-based survey in Bihar “fake” during his two visits to Patna this year and rooted for the one conducted in Telangana, it stung the ruling parties. But something does seem amiss.
The state government, in reply to an RTI (Right to Information) query by one Amarendra Kumar of Muzaffarpur, has said that no panchayat-wise or district-wise caste-based survey data has been compiled.
Amarendra had filed an RTI query with the general administration department to demand the certified copy of the survey data right from the panchayat and block to district and state levels.
The reply by the department’s public information officer and deputy secretary Mohammad Minhaz Akhtar said: “With reference to your application… We want to inform that the data related to the ‘caste-based survey 2022’ have not been compiled district-wise and panchayat-wise.”
Talking to The Telegraph Amarendra, an RTI activist, said that the reply shocked him and generated doubts about the intention of the government.
“It is impossible to imagine that panchayat, block and district-level data of the caste-based survey has not been compiled. How did they compile the figures at the state level? Has there been some scam because hundreds of crores of rupees were spent on it,” Amarendra added.
The RTI activist went in for the first appeal to procure the statistics but to no avail. He has now filed a second appeal. He is also planning to file public interest litigation (PIL) in the Patna High Court.
Transparency and public access have been the two serious issues pertaining to the caste-based survey data since the beginning.
General administration department additional chief secretary (ACS) B. Rajender evaded questions by The Telegraph about the RTI reply and whether data of panchayat and block levels were not compiled.
The caste-based survey 2022 was conducted with much fanfare in 2023, amid numerous complaints that the enumerators did not reach them. The survey data was released on Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary on October 2, 2023, pegging Bihar’s population at 13.07 crore.
The castes were counted under 215 heads, in which 36.02 per cent of the total population were extremely backward castes (EBC), 27.13 per cent were other backward castes (OBC), 19.65 per cent were scheduled castes (SC), 15.52 per cent were general category castes and 1.68 per cent were the scheduled tribes (ST).
Accordingly, the then Mahagathbandhan government led by chief minister Nitish Kumar hiked the quota limit of 50 per cent (for SC, ST, EBC and OBC) to 65 per cent in November 2023 through two acts pertaining to reservations in employment and educational institutions.
However, the Patna High Court set aside the two laws in June 2024. The Bihar government has appealed against it in the Supreme Court.
Sources in the state government said that publishing the survey data related to panchayat, block and district levels have not been published as they could be challenged by the people, who might seek rectification of the discrepancies.